Coffee
by mysticlake
Summary: Why she's really doing it is a mystery to her too, though. H/P oneshot from Emily's POV. Mild season 5 spoilers, some strong language.


Her coffee addiction is bad enough now that the barista, Josh, doesn't even bother waiting for her to come in and order every morning. Instead, there's a steaming cup with her name scrawled on it waiting loyally for her on the counter. Josh always flashes her a quick, flirty smile as she slaps down a couple of folded bills and gets her much-needed caffeine fix. He's cute, too-long rumpled curly hair and well-loved, well-worn vintage Clash t-shirts that scream _college student_, but if she's completely honest with herself, he's much too young. Which is seriously depressing, because there was a time not too far in the past when she would have been perfectly willing to sleep with him (although not just for free coffee).

Anyway, despite the daily eye candy, the coffee's what matters most at that ungodly time in the morning. She started drinking coffee earlier than anyone she knows – six or seven, maybe, before even Reid, who runs on caffeine like cars do on gas – because that was what the ambassador did. _Does, Emily. She hasn't fallen off the face of the planet._ The thought never fails to bring a sardonic smile to her face, that she was willing to stomach the watery shit that passed for coffee in endless, anonymous hotels and embassies just to imitate her high and mighty mother. _What dedication_.

Lately, though, she's been grabbing coffee for Hotch, too, and the ever-perceptive Josh has made more than a few innuendo-filled comments about this. She smirks at him and merely says that she's been extra tired lately (not untrue, because when is she ever well-rested?) and one cup doesn't cut it anymore. Why she's really doing it is a mystery to her too, though. He's stopped sleeping in his office, thankfully, but she's pretty sure that he's still working all night on the Foyet files, just not at the BAU. Again, it's not much of a stretch to tell Josh to shut the hell up because her boss is, in fact, married, albeit (she adds silently) unhappily and to his job.

She's spent weeks trying to puzzle it out, and she still can't understand his change in behavior, the man with an iron façade firmly entrenched in front of his eyes. It's not only that he's closed off; he's almost on some sort of default setting unless he's talking about Foyet. Only then does any sort of emotion come into his face, and it makes her wonder: Is it better to be absolutely obsessed than apathetic? It's like he's suddenly lost something, some intrinsic unnamable part of him that signals pain and fear and anything other than whatever Foyet does to his mind. A kind of invisible lobotomy that's taken himself away from himself.

So maybe she brings him coffee to try to resurrect that part of him, get him talking again. As she keeps telling herself, it has nothing to do with the way she wants to sleep with him. Not fuck him, her subconscious hastily adds, but just to fall asleep with him in the same bed, knowing she can reach out and he'll be there, breathing deeply but silently, solid, sure, tangible. It's an innocent wish, or so she tells herself.

Or maybe it is sexual; she's not sure. Sometimes she wakes up from her dreams so wet that she has to put on a different pair of sweats before she can go back to sleep comfortably. It's cliché, panting after the boss like this. But somehow she knows that sleeping with him in the biblical sense wouldn't make anything better. It would only make it harder than it already is to look him the eyes, dead-on, the way she forces herself to do every morning when they cross paths by the elevators. _Good morning. Here, I picked up some coffee for you._ He takes it, nods at her, slips her a few dollars that she always refuses and then later finds tucked into her coat pocket.

She tries to watch him as much as possible because she knows that he does the same thing for everyone else. When he walks down the hallway she cranes her neck to get a glimpse of him in the dull reflection of the bank of elevators. He constantly tells them that profiling is all about the little things, the things that other people pass over without thinking or don't even see. So she waits and she watches. Sees how he strokes his ring finger absentmindedly sometimes, feeling for the familiar smooth touch of a wedding band that's no longer there. How even though there aren't any more pictures of Jack in his wallet for security's sake, he's tucked in a miniature drawing done on the back of a business card by a clumsy hand wielding an orange crayon. The way he jumps now when she 'accidentally' brushes her fingers against his as he takes the coffee from her.

He drinks it black now, she's noticed.

**A/N: Short little piece that came to me when I was – you guessed it – drinking coffee this morning. Please read and review. mysticlake**


End file.
